Work

Does e-cigarette experimentation increase the transition to daily smoking among young ever-smokers in France?

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: INTRODUCTION: According to multiple studies, e-cigarette use among adolescents is associated with subsequent smoking initiation. However, little is known about its effect on the transition from smoking initiation to daily smoking. METHODS: Using retrospective data from a French national representative survey collected in 2017 (n = 39,115), we analyzed the role of ever using e-cigarettes on daily cigarette smoking status at 17 among ever smokers (n = 21,401). Risk-ratios (RR) were computed through modified Poisson regressions with an inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) approach. RESULTS: Among French adolescents aged 17, 16.8 % declared current e-cigarette use (1.9 % reported daily use) and 34.1 % cigarette smoking (25.1 % reported daily smoking). Among ever-smokers, adolescents who declared having ever used e-cigarettes were less likely than those who did not to transition to daily smoking at 17: RR = 0.62 95 %CI [0.60 - 0.64]. We found similar results for those who experimented with e-cigarettes before initiating smoking, RR = 0.76 95 %CI [0.66 - 0.89]. CONCLUSIONS: Our results found no evidence of an increased risk of transitioning to daily smoking at 17 among ever-smokers who also experimented with e-cigarettes. Further studies should investigate the longer-term role of vaping on future smoking habits with the use of causal inference methods.

Source: Drug and Alcohol Dependence

DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.107853

Authors: Sandra Chyderiotis, Tarik Benmarhnia, François Beck, Stanislas Spilka, Stéphane Legleye